Mysterious Marston

What on earth could this, found in the end-of-year email from Marston Records, be?

Our Mystery Release

For the past ten years, Marston has produced a few releases that will be remembered for their historical importance: The Edison Trials: Voice Audition Cylinders 1912-1913; In Their Own Voices: The U.S. Presidential Elections of 1908 and 1912; and The Edison Legacy, which, is to be released early in 2007.

Our May release may be the most important “find” in the history of recording. It is also an anomaly for Marston. First, we are asking you to order this on faith. For a number of reasons, we can’t give a full description, not the least reason being it is of sufficient importance that a full-fledge press campaign is warranted, and we don’t want to spoil the impact of an announcement in our newsletter. Second, it is a multi-disciplinary CD that includes voice, piano, violin, and chamber music. (Because of the multi-disciplinary nature of the compilation, only our All Preferred Customers are scheduled to receive this issue automatically so PLEASE sign up to receive your copy, including our Vocal and Piano Preferred Customers.) Finally, these recordings were made by an individual and not a record company! We guess this may be our best seller ever and we are announcing this as part of our 2007 Season because we want to make sure that you have first crack at one of the relatively few copies that will be pressed.

Either it's material recorded off the air, or they're private recordings made by someone rich or famous enough to persuade important musicians to perform or record privately. No bets here; there were lots of important musicians featured on broadcasts during the 20s and 30s, and some of them could certainly count as great finds. The Chicago Opera broadcast during the late 1920s, for example....but I bet that would not be the "greatest" find.